Author Archive for Adrien Wilkie

Bethany of EWB UP, the start of the new school year, and Peru updates

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Adrien Wilkie
on 24 September 2008
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On Sunday evening, we had a conference call which included: Daniel, Shane, Kevin, Bethany Foran from EWB University of Portland, and me. Hannah finally arrived back to the States, but has decided to focus her time in other places than ODA. Consequently, we are now looking for another individual who would be interested in fulfilling the role of finance.

After going over our previous todos list, Daniel introduced Bethany, who is involved with Engineers Without Borders at the University of Portland. We were excited to hear about what she had to say because we think that EWB could be a beneficial partner to ODA. Bethany believes that we could form a good partnership because ODA does well at working with and building a relationship with the people both EWB and ODA are trying to help and EWB is excellent at providing the necessary engineering solutions. Currently EWB has two projects: Guatemala and Honduras. The project in Guatemala deals with rainwater harvesting, and the Honduras project is still in the planning process. Our next step of collaboration with EWB includes sending Shane to some of their meetings and continuing to invite Bethany to our conference calls. Thank you Bethany for speaking with us.

As school starts up again, Daniel thinks it is pertinent to schedule a few on campus meetings to build our presence and support at the university. One meeting should be scheduled with Katie Lynch, the Environmental Studies Department advisor, for the next week. Another meeting is to introduce our project to the advisors we have been in contact with over the summer. The final meeting should be directed toward the general community and once gain serve as an introductory meeting.

This Friday Daniel and I will be meeting with Megan from Allen Hall Advertising to discuss the possibility of them assisting us with promotion and awareness. Also, we have decided to sign up to table at the OUS Sustainability Conference that is going to be at the U of O Oct. 23/24.

Daniel and Shane received an update from Anna! She is in Peru and the needs assessment is partially completed. As we move along, it becomes more important to obtain funds. We need to search for grant opportunities as well as try to become a ‘legit’ student group at the University of Oregon. Currently, we need money for the Green Empowerment technical workshop.

The ODA website is coming along nicely, but our priorities for the website include: a team page with paragraph bio and photographs, a partners page with a listing of partners and logos, links to the wiki, mail, calendar, and docs, and a “copy this organization” blurb included somewhere.

We covered a lot this meeting and plan to meet again very soon.

 
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Retreat reflections: Adrien

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Adrien Wilkie
on 15 August 2008
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This past weekend Daniel, Shane, and I gathered for our first ODA retreat, which also was our first in-person meeting since the end of the school year. I honestly had no idea what we would talk about for the entire two days, but we managed to discuss ODA business most of that time and, in fact, could have benefited from more ODA discussion time at the end of our retreat.

I felt that we started our retreat off on a good note. We had a short meeting to get one another on the same page and review our past todos. The majority of our past todos list was completed, which allowed us to start off the retreat with a clean slate.

I think that ODA can learn a lot from the experiences that Daniel had with WDA. I very much appreciated the mini-presentation that Daniel gave about his work with WDA. He had talked to me before about his work with WDA, but I felt this time I got much more out of it, due to the fact that I am now more involved with ODA. I hope Daniel remembers both what worked and what did not work so that ODA can avoid some unnecessary blunders.

I very much enjoyed Shane’s lecture about the Theory of Change; he did a fabulous job. Before this, I had only guesses as to what knowledge Shane would bestow on us concerning the Theory of Change. The ideas discussed in the lecture should definitely stay in the front of our minds as we maneuver through our project and make goals for ourselves. Also, I thought that the podcast Daniel suggested we listen to, “Is Aid to Africa Doing More Harm Than Good?,” nicely paralleled Shane’s lecture.

Thank you Daniel and Shane for the technology lesson. I think I learned a decent amount for the time that we had. I have been reading through my Google Reader multiple times a day! It is so much more efficient to have the news come to you… hopefully now I will be more up to date on current events. I am still a little bit unclear about the wiki, but I am sure once I have to do something with it, I will be fine. I am excited to say that this blog is my first ever self-published blog! (and I am sure that it will not be the last)

My favorite part of this retreat was getting to know Daniel and Shane better. I enjoyed listening to their philosophizing. The Fountainhead was mentioned so often that I now feel the need to read it and see what all of the hype was about. In all, I thought the retreat was quite productive. For our future retreat, I hope that we can also have the time to include more outdoor activities, like hiking or Frisbee.

First meeting with Kirsten

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Adrien Wilkie
on 9 August 2008
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On Wednesday, I had a meeting with Kirsten, the Environmental Studies advisor. At this meeting, I told her about ODA, our current project, and what we have done so far. She was very enthusiastic and really liked the fact that we will be basing our project off of a needs assessment of the area. In our discussion, I mentioned how we had originally been looking into doing a project in India or Peru. With my mention of India, she informed me that she had actually worked in India for a nonprofit, consequently, she had a number of contacts there. She said that whenever we are ready to focus on India again she will pass along the contact information. 

Also, concerning finance, she suggested that we check out the Knight Library’s grant database. Apparently it is great and free for U of O students. Kirsten will send along to us any funding information/opportunities that comes her way from now on. She will also pass along to us any information that she thinks might be of interest to us. Kirsten also mentioned that she has some friends in California that have a business that does basically what we are trying to do (need assessment of an area, come up with an appropriate project, get funding, implement project). She will be e-mailing me their contact information shortly. 

After the meeting, I e-mailed Kirsten a link to our website and a link to our responses to the Clinton Global Initiative so she can get a more in depth look at ODA. She wants us to keep her updated with our progress. I thought the meeting went well and Kirsten seemed willing to help.

Environmental Action Plan brainstorming meeting

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Adrien Wilkie
on 6 August 2008
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Last evening, I went to a brainstorming meeting for environmental activists (representatives of ASUO and student groups) on the University of Oregon campus. The original goal of this meeting was to discuss what projects we would like to see implemented on campus next year on both the ASUO and university administration level. However, due to the time of year and other various reasons, only two other people attended this meeting: Emmalyn (the new ASUO Environmental Advocate) and Price (a new and interested graduate student to the U of O). Because of this low attendance, we did not do much brainstorming about next year’s Environmental Action Plan. 

The majority of the meeting was directed toward answering Price’s question about how ASUO functioned, its role in the university, and what projects have been proposed for next year (bike loan program). We diverged from the original purpose of this meeting to tell each other of personal anecdotes and our various experiences concerning education, sustainability, bikes, composting, etc. It was enjoyable talking with Price and Emmalyn even though the meeting did not go as intended. We concluded our conversation by deciding that this brainstorming meeting would be rescheduled closer to the fall term when more people would be able to attend. 

ConferenceCast: Green Empowerment and Clinton Global Initiative

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Adrien Wilkie
on 29 July 2008
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Only Daniel and I participated in the conference call tonight because Shane and Hannah weren’t available. First, we talked about our general updates. I’m is in the process of connecting with Kirsten, the Environmental Studies advisor, and Allan Hall Advertising. Daniel and Shane met with Green Empowerment on Friday. At this meeting they discussed what ODA should be researching. Jason suggested that we use the database Science Direct for our research searches. When Anna goes back to Peru, she will be gathering information concerning needs assessment so that Daniel and I can put together a needs assessment survey for San Pablo. 

Next, we briefly discussed past action items. Items still on the to do list:

  • Find project on arsenic filtration at U of O (me)
  • Start finding different organizations that might fund the project (Shane and I)
  • Discussion about advertising (Shane and I)
  • Create a research priority list (Shane). 

The major topic of this conference call was the Clinton Global Initiative grant. The great news is that the grant deadline is now August 4 (Daniel has confirmed this via email). This will give us more time to revise our work. So far, we have responded to all of  the 125 words or less questions. During the conference call, Daniel and I read through the grant and made some minor changes. One of our major concerns is the length of each of our responses, most being 40+ words over the requested limit. I will try to shorten some of the responses, while Daniel is going to work on the longer additional questions that still need to be answered. We now have seven more days to complete this grant!

Hannah is shortly leaving for New Zealand and will not be back until the beginning of September. She will have difficulty checking-in with us due to lack of available phone and internet service. Her duties of looking for grant possibilities have been passed off to Daniel, Shane, and I until she returns. 

This evening’s call also discussed Green Empowerment as a technical partner. As we interpret it, our partnership with Green Empowerment essentially boils down to us raising funds for technology and transportation, going to the location for a few weeks to install the technology, then leaving. How does ODA incorporate other elements of development into our project (i.e. looking at both quantity and quality of the water source, health, education)? 

Finally, a date has been set for our beach retreat: August 10, 11. Hannah will unfortunately not be able to attend the beach retreat, but Daniel, Shane, and I will be present. Our goals for the retreat are the same as before (”getting to know each other better, talking about our mission statement and theory of change, and how we are planning on structuring the organization”).

Agenda/Minutes - ODA - 27 July 2008 [Google Docs] 

 
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Expanding over the summer

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Adrien Wilkie
on 7 July 2008
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I talked with Shannon Tyman a few days ago. She is the temporary advisor for the summer and Katie Lynch suggested that we talked with her. After talking with her, she likes our ideas, but thinks that we have a lot of work ahead of us, which we do. Her main suggestions are: that we need more people (which we knew that already), that we should talk with the International Studies department, and that Katie would be the best person to talk to about Peru (so that will have to wait until the school year starts up). 

For increasing ODA’s numbers, Shannon suggested that we make an advertising poster. A simple poster that says a little bit about ODA, perhaps a goal or two for the year, and contact information for those interested. Shannon was willing to take a copy of the poster and talk show it to the new students she will be advising for Intro-Duck-tion starting next week. Also, I could place the posters around campus in various department offices and hopefully some people would contact us back.

Concerning the International Studies Department, who we should contact?